based on the story of a domestic worker women can you say what is the equal treatment of these women
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Answer:
Domestic work has been one of the oldest jobs in the world. Due to various reasons like drought, lack of agriculture, lack of employment option, land acquisition in the name of development, displacement, harassment of Dalit class, lack of basic amenities like medical facilities, water, etc., people migrate from the villages to the cities.
These migrants are mostly poor and disadvantaged and they get work in the unorganized sector in the city. Women also have to work because of the high cost of living and poor economic conditions. Due to the lack of education and skill in women, the easiest livelihood for them is domestic work and they are forced to do it.
35 types of work classify as jobs for domestic workers. The work that fits into this category includes gardening, babysitting, cooking, sweeping, swabbing, dusting, washing utensils, washing clothes, attendants (for sick and elderly), drivers, security guards, car cleaning, etc. While some of these jobs are done by male domestic workers almost all the other jobs are done by women domestic workers.
According to the International Labor Organization (ILO), there are about six million domestic workers in India. According to the National Sample Survey 2011-12, there were 2,38,92,791 domestic workers in the country out of which 4,05,831 were women and 21,79,403 were working in the city.
In the five years between 1999-2000 and 2004-05, the number of female domestic workers increased by 22.5 lacs. For this reason, the share of women in working population has increased from 11.8 percent to 27.5 percent.
Domestic workers have to face many types of problems in both home and workspaces. On the one hand, they do not always get a happy atmosphere and support at home; on the other hand, the situation at their workplace is mostly that of discrimination and insecurity.
The society's view of domestic workers is not good in general. Their work is not considered dignified and their work is not given importance and they are considered to be servants instead of workers.
Employers of household workers from time to time give them stale leftover food, torn clothes, worn out shoes & slippers, etc. It hurts their self-esteem but they bear it silently believing it to be their fate. If there are incidents of sexual harassment with them in the workplace, the society also blames them.
Female domestic workers invest their entire earning in their families, yet they rarely have a say in the major family decisions. These women have to face domestic violence. Their husbands normally consume alcohol from their own wages, so the responsibility of running the whole house comes on these women's shoulders.
These women do not have any social or economic security. There are no domestic women workers associations or NGOs that come forward to help them. Therefore when there is injustice done to them, nobody comes forward to fight for them. In the absence of such organizations, their demands do not become known to the public.
Female domestic workers work for approx. 14 hours daily, thereby causing fatigue, joint pain, back pain, etc. Most of the time, during the work, their hands are in water containing detergents or phenyl, which causes wounds in the fingers. Usage of cold water in winters to wash clothes, utensils or swab the floor accentuates the development of arthritis in the fingers and hands of these women.
They are not allowed to use toilets in the workplace, due to which they drink less water, often due to this, they develop urine infections. Due to drinking less water, there is a possibility of kidney damage also.
There are many occasions when these women become victims of physical violence, sexual abuse, and inhuman behavior at the workplace. According to a research by Human Rights Watch, domestic servants in India have to face extreme harassment.
The women and child development department informed the Rajya Sabha in February 2014 that cases of violence are increasing with domestic workers in the country and between 2010 and 2012, 10,503 cases of domestic crime against domestic workers were registered, in which 3564 cases were registered in 2012, 3517 in 2011 and 3422 cases were registered in 2010.
If anything gets stolen in the house, then the first person to suspect is the domestic worker. These women do not get any facilities like weekly off, annual vacation, maternity leave, sick leave, insurance, social security benefits etc., like other workers. If there is an accident at the workplace, the employer does not pay for the medical treatment of the worker.